When I was ready to stamp, I just decided to pull out the For The Birds Stamp Set and ended up with this thinking of you card.  Sometimes there is no rhyme or reason for what I stamp. I might go to the shelf for a certain stamp set and something else will catch my eye. That’s one of the things I love about stamping –  there are so many options and choices and usually you can make any of them work.

These For The Birds stamps all have a saying underneath the image.  Some I like and some I don’t care for that much, but you can avoid using the saying if you don’t want it. Either cover it up with a post-it before you ink up and then remove it, or wipe the ink off, or cut the greeting off after you stamp. On this tag, I just cut off the words underneath the mailbox and made my own greeting with a stamp from Teeny Tiny Wishes. I cut out the greeting with the Bitty Banners Big Shot Die Framelits.

The tag is stamped with Stazon Black Ink and colored in with Stampin’ Write Markers – sort of! With the Blendabiities gone, I ordered some new Blender Pens on my last order. I still have my original set and one other but they are all a little ragged and dry. It was a joy to color with these new pointy Blender Pens!! There are so many options for coloring, but what I did today on this tag was to scribble some marker ink on the stamp case cover, then picked up that ink with a Blender Pen.  You can use the same one over and over and just scribble it on your Grid Paper (backordered right now!) or scrap paper until it is clear again. You can add more ink if you want your coloring darker, although you can’t “work” the coloring too much on just Whisper White paper.  Better to use Watercolor Paper. But I was using Whisper White and I did get it messed up a little bit – but let’s just say it’s an old mail box!! In some places where I wanted it darker, I used the marker directly. Depending on the colors, using markers straight on your image is too dark and heavy often times. That’s why Blender Pens or the Aqua Painter are so useful to have available.

Since the tag was too plain, I added some sponging with the Sponge Daubers, just a little Wild Wasabi and Soft Sky. And a little shadow with the Smokey Slate Marker.  I used the Tag Topper Scalloped Punch and adhered a bow with the Lost Lagoon 3/8″ Silky Taffeta Ribbon (which is on the Clearance Rack as I write this!).

The card base is a 4 1/4″ Whisper White square with a layer of Island Indigo card stock and a pattern from the All Abloom Designer Series Paper Stack.

Go look on your shelf of stamp sets and see which one jumps out at you and create something with it!

Reminder:  Last day for this week’s Weekly Deals!

Oh my stars! I’ve always said we all need stars in our stamping collections! They can be stamps or punches or framelits, but we all need stars available to us. Stars can be used for so many occasions, so if you have stars, you can make a card.  This week the Stars Framelits Dies are on sale on the Stampin’ Up! Weekly Deals AND you can order them (and more!) with Stampin’ Up! free shipping, but only today and tomorrow. FREE SHIPPING ends Friday, April 10. Don’t miss it!

I made this star card by folding a piece of Basic Black card stock in half and placing the fold at the top and just below the top edge of the star framelit so that it would not be cut. That leaves the fold to form the card.  On the inside I also added a tiny strip of paper as a hinge for the top of the card. Then I die cut assorted stars in Daffodil Delight card stock and Brights Backgrounds Designer Series Paper Stack so I could play around with various combinations to make the card.  If you place one star framelit inside another, you can cut out the center as you can see I did on one star. Pop some of the stars up on Stampin’ Dimensionals if you like.

Here is the inside of the card.  Now I can stamp a greeting inside for whatever occasion I need.

Be sure you take advantage of the great Weekly Deals this week and especially the FREE SHIPPING! Remember, everyone needs stars!

Shop HERE at my Stampin’ Up! Online Store to make sure you get in on the FREE SHIPPING!  No minimum order!  Shop more than once if you forgot something.  It’s all FREE! (shipping, that is!)

Today is Opening Day for Astros baseball in Houston, so why not celebrate with a card?! As I looked through some ideas I found this Starburst Sayings Stamp Set and I thought “Oh Happy Day” certainly expresses the feelings of baseball fans everywhere when baseball starts back up in the spring. I used Night of Navy card stock for the card base and added a fun layer of orange from the Sweet Taffy Designer Series Paper.  The middle strip of Night of Navy is embossed with the Decorative Dots Embossing Folder and the Big Shot.

The center medallion is stamped with Night of Navy ink and then die cut with a Circle Framelit. That way it would fit on a Starburst Framelit that is the right size for this card.  The starburst is cut from a Gold Foil sheet.  To make the wording pop on the medallion, I stamped again in Pumpkin Pie ink and just cut out the word Happy to adhere over the blue popped up on Stampin’ Dimensionals.

To give the card a baseball feel, I punched two Whisper White circles with the 1″ Circle Punch. Then I just drew on the baseball markings with Stampin’ Write Markers in Real Red and Smokey Slate.

And you can order any of these stamping supplies with FREE SHIPPING THIS WEEK!

Just go to my Stampin’ Up! Online Store HERE and order away!

(Don’t forget the Weekly Deals, too!  Order today and order from the new ones tomorrow!  Be sure to get the Magnetic Platform on sale if you don’t own one!)

No shipping charge April 6-10.

Order Now!

Sometimes it is so easy to come up with an idea for a card, and the Blooming With Kindness Stamp Set seemed to fit the bill for this easy card. While catching up on reading newspapers after our vacation to Death Valley last week, I saw a furniture store ad that had a pillow that caught my eye. The main image on the pillow actually looked a little like a retired stamp we used to have but I also thought of this Blooming With Kindness flower stamp. Then I just stamped a small portion of the flower in each corner of the Whisper White layer.  This is a 4″ x 4″ card.

On the inside of the card I stamped a larger portion of the flower in the lower right corner of a piece of Whisper White. A greeting can be stamped inside or I can simply write a little note in my own handwriting.

The card base is Night of Navy card stock 4″ x 8″ folded in half.  The layer is Whisper White 3 3/4″ x 3 3/4″ and the images stamped in Night of Navy Ink.

Here is a picture of my inspiration for this card:

I think you will find that often home decors ads or pictures in magazines can really give you ideas for card, especially pillows! They are the accent pieces of the room and often the colors or the basic design pattern can catch your eye and make you think of how you could translate that into a card or other project. Think about that next time you are paging through one of your magazines.

We are often focused on the newest “mini” catalog, but don’t forget the beautiful stamp sets in the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog!  I have a few copies available if you do not have your own demonstrator that you work with and if you would like the hard copy of the catalog to look through. Just send me an email or leave a comment on this post.

This is about the last week for Stampin’ Up!’s biggest promotion, Sale-A-Bration!  Last day is the last day of the month, Tuesday March 31. Earn a free Sale-A-Bration product with every $50 purchase in current Stampin’ Up! products!  Just shop online RIGHT HERE!

Sale-A-Bration is also a good time to sign up to join Stampin’ Up! and become a Demonstrator! Not only do you get the Starter Kit chock full of $125 in stamping supplies plus some business supplies to get you started for ONLY $99, but during Sale-A-Bration you have two extra options to choose from:  Receive a FREE Simply Created Project Kit from the Occasions Catalog OR Receive two free Sale-A-Bration items of your choice. And remember, the Starter Kit is customizable now, no set products that you will receive.  You make your own list according to your likes and needs. As your upline, I can help you build your business in whatever manner you prefer. I’m happy to answer any questions you might have. It’s a very easy process to sign up, you will be a Demonstrator in minutes, and it just may be the best thing you could do for your life or for your family’s benefit.

Shop HERE during Sale-A-Bration until March 31!

It’s National Pi Day and I won’t pretend to know very much about the subject of Pi! I much prefer the National PIE Day! Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, which is approximately 3.14159 and apparently very interesting to math geeks! Pi Day is celebrated on March 14 because the date reads 3.14, the beginning of the pi numeral. It will continue beyond the first few numbers after the decimal point, infinitely.

This year, 2015, makes Pi Day especially notable as the date can be expressed as 3-14-15, the first five numbers of pi (3.1415)!  Some people even get a thrill out of memorizing the digits of pi, including my youngest son who did that in high school calculus class. His record stood for a couple years, I think!

That’s about as far as my interest in Pi goes, but I did come across this piano piece for Pi Day! I think you might enjoy it!